Today: Tuesday, 30 April 2024 year

Cavusoglu: most Turks ask to block Finland’s NATO membership

Cavusoglu: most Turks ask to block Finland’s NATO membership

Most Turkish residents are asking the government to block Finland and Sweden from joining NATO because of their policies with the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

Turkey is following the process around the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO and so far cannot look at it positively, President Tayyip Erdogan said earlier.


“NATO is primarily a military-political alliance of allies. Finland and Sweden openly support the PKK, which carries out terrorist attacks on Turkey, our serviceman died just yesterday. Most of the people of Turkey ask us to block the process due to the presence of such a policy, we will discuss this question with the rest of NATO allies,” the minister said, adding that he was expected to have talks with colleagues from Stockholm and Helsinki.


Finland and Sweden started talking about the possibility of abandoning their long-term neutrality and joining NATO against the backdrop of a Russian special operation in Ukraine. The head of the alliance, Jens Stoltenberg, argued that the alliance would be glad to see Finland and Sweden in its ranks and provide them with the opportunity to quickly join.